Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-10-27
GOVERNOR ST. JOHN.
HIS LECTURE In THE CLUNIE
OPERA HOUSE LAST NIGHT.
His Text, Prohibition-He Deals in
Statistics-What Abolition of Sa-
looms Has Done for Kansas.

4
! The announcement that the Hon. John
2. st. John, who served two terms as Gov,
ernor of the State of Kansas, elected or
the Prohibition ticket, and was the Presi
dental candidate of that party at the last
election, was to give free lecture at the
Clunie Opera House last night caused thai
building TO be packed to repletion at an
early hour.
The meeting was opened by prayer by
Rev. A. C. Herrick, of Calvary Baptist
Church.
A quartet consisting of Miss Needham
Mrs. Dunn and Messrs. Desmond and
Clough, sang The Star Spangled Banner, y
Mrs. Pinkham presiding at the piano. The
soprano, Miss Needham, is late acquisi-
ton to our local musical talent, and her
solo was warmly applauded. She has a
! voice of great power, which shows
considerable cultivation and she sings with
much expression. The quartet was re-
called, and the little lady must have been
more than pleased at her reception on her
| first appearance before Sacramento audi
| ence.
Rev. A. T. Needham, of the Sixth street
| NJ. (. Church, in few eloquent and COM
plimentary remarks presented the speaker
of the evening, the Hon. John P. ST. John.
THE LECTURER.
When the speaker came forward TO the
| footlights he was greeted with storms of
applause. He said he did not feel as
though he was stranger in a strange land.
~ x-na l.
| gold mines of this State and frequent
visitor to Sacramento. The last time but
one that he was in this city was during the
memorable food, before the city had been
brought to the high grade, and he rowed a.
| boat up J street in five or six feet of water
| He related some laughable Police Court
| incidents that happened in Sacramento at
that time. He saw poor fellow who was
charged with a mlsdemeanOr pay lawyer
500 10 defend him. He watched the pro-
! gress of the trial, and was of the opinion
| that the fellow would have gone free if he
| had not retained counsel, but the latter. in
endeavoring to make show for his client,
succee led IN landing him in Jail. He be-
| came at once convinced that it was not
necessary to have brains TO become a law
| yer, saw that there was more money in it
| than there was in mining, bought copy of
Blackstone aud dictionary and went back
to his miners cabin 10 read up and become
| lawyer. He succeeded, or at least he
| became lawyer. AS a story-teller ST
| John is superior; all of his illustrations
| were apt, and his audience was kept in the
| best of humor.
He INDUCED in no words of bitterness
said that even the saloon-keeper was as
| good as the saloon he kept and the saloon
was as good as the law which sanctioned it.
and the law as good as the church mem
bers who vote for it. He claimed that for
every dollar paid for education through our
public schools we contribute $50 to tear
down through the public saloons that the
| liquor traffic of California costs the people
| at least $50,000,000 annually, without get
ting in return single blessing that there
were over 1l000 retail liquor dealers in
| this State, and 2l5,000 in the nation that
the Government receives $25 blood money
from each OF these places every year, and
has 80 cents interest in every gallon of dis
titled liquor manufactured, making
UNCLE SAM THE PRINCIPAL FARTHER
In the nefarious business. He branded il
cense, high or low, as a fraud and sham
| a fraud upon the saloon-keepers and sham
as temperance measure-and declared
that with the liquor question, as with
s!avrey, there could be no final settlement
short of absolute prohibition of the evil.
| He said: Notwithstanding the attempt of
| the Republican party to carry saloon on
| one shoulder and a church on the other,
! and the open opposition to prohibition on
| the part of the Democracy, aided by the
combined rum power of the nation, pro-
| hlbition in Kansas, when compared with
any license system, is a grand success"
During six and one-half years of prohibi-
| lion, Kansas had grown in taxable wealth
from $l60000,000 TO over $33000O,0O0,
| while her railroads increased from 5000
| to $500 miles, and the population of the
| State jumped from 100000 to zoe, 600,
| and that there was not an open dram-shop
| in the State, and not one-tenth as much
liquors were used now as under the old
| license system. He read from Il letter
| written in 1881 by the Warden of
| THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS PENITENTIARY,
Showing that 70 per cent. of the inmates of
that institution were there through the
| saloon system. That Edwards county, in
that State, has been without saloons seven
teen years, and had sent but one person to
| the penitentiary during that time; also
| letter dated April 6, 1881, from Thos. c.
Pockman, then Warden of the penitentiary
at Folsom, California, in which Mr.. Peck
man says: 9 ! estimate that about 80 per
cent. of the prisoners owe their misfortunes
to the use of liquor. ] regard this cause as
u y
stated that since they mad prohibition in
Kansas the prison population had gradu-
ally decreased in that State. Said he:
SACRAMENTO HAS TIE KEY,
Which, if properly used, would open the
way 10 city of 100000 population where
she now stands. within the next five or ten
years. But neither commercial nor social
prosperity can ever be attained through $50
soul and Misunderstanding saloons. They
stand as a mighty stumbling block in the
way to success" " You" said the speaker,
" look TO the Eastern States for the popula-
ton needed to give Northern California a
boom. You have the climate, the SOIL in
fact every natural advantage that could
reasonably be desired, but in the country
from which you hope to draw the capital,
the energy and true manhood which makes
a State great, the question of the proh;bi-
ton of the liquor traffic has been agitated
lor years and
| THE CONSCIENCE OF THE PEOPLE.
Has been quickened, and aroused to the
this evil, hence these people will
not bring their boys, or girls
either, to a city the streets of which are
lined with these influences, which destroy
both soul and body of their victims, so
long as there are other places that are COM
paratively free from the curse. Just think
of it Four hundred and fifty saloons, re-
ceiving over their bars an average of $40
per day each, aggregating over 100000
annually. What do you get in return
! Why misery, poverty, crime and general
Decentralization. Let Sacramento purge
herself of this curse, and step out
INTO THE BROAD SUNLIGHT
OF a purer government and higher civili-
cation, and thus remove the obstacles which
stand in the way of her attaining the grand
position as city that her natural advan-
tages entitle her to. In this step onward
and upward, let the church do its duty.
There are ten protested Christian voters to
every saloon keeper in the land, and
whenever these Christians are as firmly
united for Christ as the liquor sellers
are for the saloons, the saloons
will go. In 1880 the wealth of the church
members in the United States was IS, 728, :
100000. The same year professed Chris
tians paid only So 100000 for missions,
while 5000, goo 900 was expended by the
people in the saloons of the land: or over
100 times more for the devil than for
Christ-and yet at the polls we see some
men who profess 10 be Christians voting
the same
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